UK Population Growth

Debate between Lord Dubs and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Monday 4th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The Government have made it quite clear that the most recent immigration figures are much too high, and that of course causes problems of the kind that my noble friend has suggested in areas such as housing. However, we have taken actions that are expected to lead to a significant fall in the number of dependants, and from tightening financial requirements—a fall of about 300,000 on last year’s figures. Some come in in January, some in March and some in April. When they fully take effect on the ONS figures—which will not be until the end of the year, at the earliest—we can of course take another look.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, of the proposed increase, how many are going to be asylum seekers?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The projections do not break the individual categories down in that way. They are, as the noble Lord probably knows, put together by expert panels and they are projections. They look quite a lot at the last 10 years, as well as at what else might be happening. I emphasise the point that they do not attempt to account for the impact of future policy changes.

COP 27

Debate between Lord Dubs and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Thursday 27th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

To ask His Majesty’s Government who will represent the United Kingdom at the COP 27 conference in Egypt.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK will have a strong delegation at COP 27, including the Foreign Secretary and several other Ministers, who will engage with international counterparts on the transition to net zero and climate resilience. Alok Sharma MP was reappointed COP president on 25 October, leading the UK’s contribution to the successful implementation of the historic Glasgow climate pact. We also expect a significant presence on the part of civil society and business, building on their participation in Glasgow last year.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Answer from the Minister that the Foreign Secretary and other senior Ministers will be attending, particularly in the light of the comments made yesterday by the Secretary-General of the United Nations about how important it is that we keep climate change in our sights. Can the Minister comment on one further thing? Apparently, according to the media, the previous Government said that they did not want His Majesty King Charles to attend COP. Can she make it clear that if the King wants to attend, he will be welcome to do so?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I should start by saying that His Majesty is globally recognised for his foresight and leadership on climate and sustainability over five decades—in fact, well before these issues became mainstream. However, the Government do not comment on communications and advice between our Prime Minister and the monarch.

Premium Bonds

Debate between Lord Dubs and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, that is for a debate, not a Question. I am not a fan of hypothecation. The Government raise premium bonds to fund government expenditure, as I have explained, and obviously there is nothing to stop anybody giving their tax-free winnings to charity as they see fit. We do not have any plans to introduce a direct transfer to charities, which would require stakeholder consultation and a systems change. The product is a good part of the portfolio of savings products that we have and, as I said, it is very popular.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, would not more people buy premium bonds if there were not such a miserably low rate of interest?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

We try to make sure that premium bonds are a reasonable deal in the market for savings. The noble Lord will probably know that we delayed reducing the rates on premium bonds until quite recently. They continue to be popular, and it makes sense to look at them in the round, aiming for a balance for savers and taxpayers, as well as stability in the sector, obviously, in which they have a role as part of NS&I’s work.

Aircraft: Laser Pointers

Debate between Lord Dubs and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I acknowledge the comments that have been made to me by many noble friends—that it might have been better if all four Questions today had been about International Women’s Day.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

The Government are urgently drawing together a plan to tackle the issues relating to the noble Lord’s Question to ensure the safety of both consumers and aircraft, including consideration of legislative options. However, people have recently been sentenced to prison terms under existing legislation for the misuse of lasers in connection with aircraft.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, can the Minister tell us what it is about these lasers that makes them a legitimate and legal item to be available for sale? Does she not agree that anything so dangerous that it could bring down an aircraft should not be available for sale and capable of entering the hands of either idiots or people with malice—that is, terrorists?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I agree with the noble Lord. There are of course many legitimate uses for laser products in the professional field—for example, in research and construction—and indeed in consumer products, but our primary concern, as I think is the noble Lord’s, is laser pointers, where we agree that the need for powerful lasers is questionable. We will take that into account in looking at legislative options.

BBC Charter Review

Debate between Lord Dubs and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Thursday 16th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

This point will, I am sure, be closely scrutinised by the review process. It is at the heart of the issue. The BBC is large, and that brings responsibility. There is evidence on the positive side and there is evidence on the other side. Some of it will come from the commercial operators; that is entirely right. When considering industry policy and competition policy in our country we try to look not only at—in this case—the BBC, but at how that affects the whole infrastructure, the talent and the way things feed in. This seems an entirely appropriate question for the review to consider. However, I note the noble Baroness’s concern and I thank her for the question.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a perception that some recent decisions about the BBC, such as the one about licences for the over-75s, did not come from DCMS but from the Treasury. Can we have an assurance that there will be a proper basis for moving forward with the BBC without pressure from the Treasury, with saving money being the dominant factor?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

The Government will conduct the review and will come to their conclusions in an entirely proper way. Funding and matters of value for money are important issues. As I was saying earlier, there is some advantage in having an understanding of the financial envelope in which the charter review can be looked at. There are some positives for the BBC. I have talked to their executives about some of the positives that have come out of the deal that has been done: the change to broadband funding, the CPI—which was mentioned earlier—and this vital point about taking account of changes in new technology and finding a way of bringing in the catch-up market which, as we know from our children, is set to mushroom very rapidly.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Dubs and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment with great enthusiasm and want to comment briefly on an interesting point made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and possibly by others as well. I serve on a committee of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly and towards the end of last autumn we produced a report on people trafficking. We covered all the jurisdictions—that is, England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and indeed the Republic of Ireland—and one thing that came through very clearly was that children who are taken into care because they appear to have been trafficked too often disappear from their local authority care home. Nothing seems to be done about that. It may be that the numbers are small, and I very much hope that they are, but surely it is extremely serious if a child in such a vulnerable position is taken into what seems to be a safe environment and then disappears, presumably—we can only suspect this—because the traffickers have discovered where the child is and have persuaded, induced or compelled him or her to abscond. There appears to be no system—I may be wrong but my committee could not discover one—whereby local authorities are diligent enough to try to find out what is happening to these children. They may have done so from time to time but there seems to be a gap in what is going on. Therefore I look to the amendment in the realistic hope that a child trafficking guardian would use influence to lessen the likelihood of children disappearing from local authority care homes.

On the noble Lord’s point about the cost implication if a child is moved from one local authority to another, I do not understand why a child in the care of a local authority, with no obvious parents to care for him or her, would be moved from one local authority care home to another, although it might happen. Nor can I see a good reason why a child should leave the country, as has also been suggested. If a child is vulnerable and in care, surely everything must be done to ensure that the child’s well-being is looked after totally and that the child would be enabled to leave the country only if there were a proper basis for him or her to be looked after elsewhere; otherwise we are simply saying, “We are washing our hands of this child and never mind what happens to it”. Surely we would never dream of doing that.

I look at the amendment to see to what extent it will meet the need that I have just described. I think that, by and large, it would. It does not quite spell it out as clearly as I would like, but if we had a child trafficking guardian and the child was in a local authority care home, the guardian would know that the child was there and keep an eye on him. If the child were to disappear, the guardian would surely be among the first to ask, “What has happened? All steps must be taken to find the child”. Above all, it would help the local authority care home and the social workers to develop a better system so that children could not easily be induced or compelled away, or whatever happens to them. Even if the numbers are small, we are dealing with a serious problem. We always thought that once a child was in a care home the child was safe. I hope that this amendment, if passed, will make such children a little safer.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I had not intended to speak but I was concerned to hear about some of the disturbing individual cases of bad practice described by noble Lords.

Surely the prime public policy need is better enforcement by the police, supported by social services, of anti-child-trafficking laws and penalties to prevent these awful things happening. Does an adequate framework for such enforcement exist? This issue is highly relevant to Amendment 55A.

The issues would be better discussed and tackled separately in legislation that can look at both issues—perhaps in the draft modern slavery Bill. We should also take time to properly review the proposed provisions. I noted the well informed comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, about the role of volunteers and the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, about costs. For these reasons we should not burden the Immigration Bill with this complex new issue but seek to find a way forward to consider it.